full title
THE BOW (2005)
  • Director KIM Ki-duk
    Year 2005
    Status Completed
    Genre drama
    Starring JEON Sung-hwan, HAN Yeo-reum, SEO Ji-seok
    Running Time 90 min.
    Country of Production Korea
    Festival & Awards 2005 Cannes Film Festival - Opening Film of Un Certain Regard
    2005 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival - Horizons
    2005 San Sebastian International Film Festival
    2005 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
    2006 Mar del Plata International Film Festival
    Synopsis For 10 years, a 60-year-old man has lived with a 16-year-old girl on a boat afloat in the middle of the sea. The old man crosses dates out from a calendar and counts the remaining days to her 17th birthday. On that day, he will marry the girl. When a group of men come onto the boat for fishing and sexually assault the girl, the old man shoots arrows from his bow at them to threaten them away.

    The girl innocently receives the old man’s attention when he prepares breakfast for her and bathes her. She is content with the life on the isolated boat, helping the old man serve the fishermen.

    When a gentle college boy comes aboard the boat to fish, their relationship begins to suffer. As she becomes more and more attracted to the boy, she begins to distance herself from the old man, and the old man is wrapped up in a jealousy. One night the old man catches the moment when the boy leans in to kiss the girl. The old man furiously expels the boy from his boat. A few days later when the boy comes back to the boat, the old man tries to shoot the boy with the bow, but the girl shields the boy with her body.

    The girl agrees to leave the boat with the boy to go back to her parents. In despair, the old man ties a rope to the ship they are taking and wraps the other end around his neck. As the boat sails further away from the old man’s, the rope begins to strangle him. When he cannot bear the pain any longer, the girl turns her boat around…
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